WASHINGTON—The U.S.'s top intelligence officials said Tuesday that an attempted al Qaeda attack on the U.S. in the next three to six months was "certain."

An official also said the Nigerian who allegedly attempted to blow up an airliner on Christmas Day was again cooperating with federal investigators. Republicans have accused the administration of squandering a chance to gain valuable intelligence from the suspect by using the civilian court system to charge him, instead of declaring him an enemy combatant and subjecting him to more interrogation.

Al Qaeda remains a significant threat to the U.S., the officials said, and the group's recent evolution in tactics includes dispatching individuals who can enter the U.S. without arousing suspicion, such as the man accused of attempting the Christmas Day attack.

Such tactics have created "a new degree of difficulty" for U.S. spies seeking to thwart the next attack, Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair told the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.

Al Qaeda will remain intent on attacking in the U.S. at least until Osama bin Laden and his second in command, Ayman al Zawahiri, are killed or captured, Mr. Blair said.

Al Qaeda's many affiliates are also of great concern to the spy agencies. The Yemeni affiliate, which is believed to have directed the attempted Christmas Day attack, will continue to attempt additional attacks on the U.S., Mr. Blair said.

Militant groups in Pakistan are also coordinating their attacks with al Qaeda, which has led to an increase in terrorist attacks inside Pakistan as well as rising concerns the groups may expand their ambitions to attack outside Pakistan, officials said.

Republican lawmakers also pressed Mr. Blair and FBI Director Robert Mueller on the decision to read Miranda rights to the alleged Christmas Day bomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, rather than submit him to further interrogation. Both officials said that decisions on whether to read a terror suspect his rights or interrogate him to collect intelligence should be made on a case-by-case basis.

Mr. Abdulmutallab was interviewed by Federal Bureau of Investigation agents on Christmas Day as he underwent treatment following the botched bombing attempt on a Northwest Airlines flight from Amsterdam to Detroit. He stopped cooperating after about an hour, U.S. officials said.

However, last week federal agents began talking to Mr. Abdulmutallab again. "He's been talking for a number of days," a law enforcement official said. "Has provided actionable intelligence that we're following up on."

Mr. Blair previously said that the suspect should have been questioned by a special interrogation group that is still under development. But Tuesday he appeared more supportive of the FBI's decision to read Mr. Abdulmutallab his rights. "The balance struck in the case was a very understandable balance," Mr. Blair said. "We got good intelligence."

In addition to terrorism, cyberattacks are the other key threat Mr. Blair emphasized, saying that "American efforts are not strong enough" to combat cyber threats. The recent cyberattacks on Google Inc. were a "wake-up call" that the attackers are outstripping U.S. defenses, he said.

Sensitive information is stolen on a daily basis from government and company networks, he said, adding that it isn't certain that U.S. computer networks would remain available in a time of crisis.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, a California Democrat who chairs the intelligence panel, said the cyber threat had reached a point where countries should consider "the value of a cyber treaty with built-in mutual assurances of behavior." U.S. officials have in the past resisted such proposals out of concern that they would limit its options to maneuver, attack, and spy in cyberspace, but the Obama administration has expressed some openness to the idea.

Write to Siobhan Gorman at siobhan.gorman@wsj.com and Evan Perez at evan.perez@wsj.com

(http://media.bonnint.net/apimage/4b811d46-6e0b-41d5-8ac0-ef9e275946db.jpg)FILE - In this file photo from Feb. 25, 2009, Central Intelligence Agency Director Leon E. Panetta speaks with reporters at CIA Headquarters in Langley, Va. Senior U.S. intelligence officials told Congress Tuesday, Feb. 2, 2010 Al-Qaida can be expected to attempt an attack on the United States in the next three to six months. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)

http://www.federalnewsradio.com/?nid=27&sid=1879212

Intel chief: Al-Qaida likely to attempt attack

February 2, 2010 - 7:09pm

By PAMELA HESSAssociated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) - Al-Qaida can be expected to attempt an attack on the United States in the next three to six months, senior U.S. intelligence officials told Congress Tuesday.

The terrorist organization is deploying operatives to the United States to carry out new attacks from inside the country, including "clean" recruits with a negligible trail of terrorist contacts, CIA Director Leon Panetta said. Al-Qaida is also inspiring homegrown extremists to trigger violence on their own, Panetta added.

The annual assessment of the nation's terror threats provided no startling new terror trends, but amplified growing concerns since the Christmas Day airline attack in Detroit that militants are growing harder to detect and moving more quickly in their plots.

"The biggest threat is not so much that we face an attack like 9/11. It is that al-Qaida is adapting its methods in ways that oftentimes make it difficult to detect," Panetta told the Senate Intelligence Committee.

Several senators tangled over whether suspected terrorists should be tried in civilian or military court. At the same time, a group of bipartisan lawmakers introduced legislation that would force the Obama administration to backtrack on its plans to try Sept. 11 defendants in federal court in New York and use military tribunals instead.

As al-Qaida presses new terror plots, it is increasingly relying on new recruits with minimal training and simple devices to carry out attacks, Panetta said as part of the terror assessment to Congress.

Panetta also warned of the danger of extremists acting alone: "It's the lone-wolf strategy that I think we have to pay attention to as the main threat to this country," he said.

The hearing comes just over a month since a failed attempt to bring down an airliner in Detroit, allegedly by a Nigerian suspect. And the assessment comes only a few months after U.S. Army Maj. Nidal Hassan is accused of single-handedly attacking his fellow soldiers at Fort Hood, Texas, killing 13.

National Intelligence Director Dennis Blair said with changes made since the Dec. 25 attack, U.S. intelligence would he able to identify and stop someone like the Detroit bomber before he got on the plane. But he warned a more careful and skilled would-be terrorist might not be detected.

FBI Director Robert Mueller defended the FBI's handling of the Detroit attempted bombing attack, disputing assertions that agents short-circuited more intelligence insights from the Nigerian suspect by quickly providing him with his Miranda rights to remain silent.

Mueller said that in "case after case," terrorists have provided actionable intelligence even after they were given their rights and charged with crimes. Mueller said they know such cooperation can result in shorter sentences or other consideration from the government.

But Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., offered a bill Tuesday that would prohibit the government from using Justice Department funds to prosecute suspects charged in the Sept. 11 attack in civilian courts.

The move comes on the heels of the Obama administration's decision to rethink whether it would try 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammad in a New York City courtroom.

The proposed law would cover people who legally could be prosecuted by a military commission, applying to terror suspects who are not U.S. citizens. By Tuesday evening, the bill had support from 18 senators, mostly Republicans.

During the terror assesment hearing, Blair also warned of the growing cyberthreat, saying computer-related attacks have become dynamic and malicious.

Obama has promised to make cybersecurity a priority in his administration, but the president's new budget asks for a decrease in funds for the Homeland Security Department's cybersecurity division.

The government's first quadrennial homeland security review states high consequence and large-scale cyberattacks could massively disable or hurt international financial, commercial and physical infrastructure.

The report, obtained by The Associated Press, said these types of cyberattacks could cripple the movement of people and goods around the world and bring vital social and economic programs to a halt.

Operation Bojinka was a planned series of terrorist attack schedules for January of 1995. The plot involved three separate elements:

The assassination of Pope John Paul II during a visit to the Phillipines on January 15.

The bombing of eleven airliners on January 21 and 22.

The flying of a Cessna filled with explosives into CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia.

'Operation Bojinka' often refers only the most deadly element of the plot -- the plan to destroy jumbo jets in mid flight. All of the targeted flights were trans-oceanic routes between east Asia and the United States. All had two legs, and the plan involved placing bombs aboard the planes on the first legs, and then detonating them on their second legs.

Operation Bojinka was abandoned in the wake of an apartment fire in Manila on January 6, 1995, which led to the discovery by police of evidence of the plot.

Operation Bojinka (also known as Project Bojinka, Bojinka Plot, Bojinga, from Arabic: slang in many dialects for explosion and pronounced Bo-JIN-ka, except in Egyptian where it is Bo-GIN-ka) was a planned large-scale attack on airliners in 1995, and was a precursor to the September 11 attacks.

The term can refer to the "airline bombing plot" alone, or that combined with the "Pope assassination plot" and the "CIA plane crash plot". The first refers to a plot to destroy 11 airliners on January 21 and 22, 1995, the second refers to a plan to kill John Paul II on January 15, 1995, and the third refers a plan to crash a plane into the CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia and other buildings. Operation Bojinka was prevented on January 6 and 7, 1995, but some lessons learned were apparently used by the planners of the September 11 attacks. This article will cover all three plans. site: wikipedia.org page: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Bojinka

The Wikipedia article, like most covering Operation Bojinka, does not raise the question of whether the plan was in fact a false-flag operation designed to make al Qaida appear more capable and threatening than it actually was. It is interesting that, prior to 9/11/01, no actual attacks blamed on al Qaida either killed large numbers of U.S. civilians or had a sophistication even approaching that of Operation Bojinka.

This is the second broadcast of Upon Closer Inspection, a radio show on WXBH 92.7 FM in Louisville, Kentucky. In this program I look at the subject of "Operation Bojinka" and "The Planes Operation", also known as "the second wave of Operation Bojinka" and "a virtual blueprint for the 9/11 attacks." For more information visit: http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/project.jsp?project=911_project

Something did not register quite right about that attempted assasination of JPJ2.

Obviously some intel blew the whistle and informed the Filipino gov't before it was carried out. No way were the Filipino intel or military going to let that happen on their watch. With a million Filipinos on their way to see him.

well they caught Tommy Chong on terrorism charges (an FBI agent got hired at his plant and then bipassed normal shipping procedure to send himself a bong into a town where it was prohibited. Tommy did hard time for that one, don't we feel safer), so hundreds seems a bit low to me.

Senators Warned of Terrorist Attack on U.S. by July http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/03/us/politics/03intel.htmlBy MARK MAZZETTIPublished: February 2, 2010

WASHINGTON — America’s top intelligence official told lawmakers on Tuesday that he was “highly certain” that Al Qaeda or one of its affiliates would attempt a large-scale attack on American soil within the next six months.

The assessment by Dennis C. Blair, the director of national intelligence, was much starker than his view last year, when he emphasized the considerable progress in the campaign to debilitate Al Qaeda and said that the global economic meltdown, rather than the prospect of a major terrorist attack, was the “primary near-term security concern of the United States.”

Citing a recent wave of terrorist plots, including the failed Dec. 25 attempt to blow up an airliner as it approached Detroit, Mr. Blair and other intelligence officials told a Senate panel that Al Qaeda had adjusted its tactics to more effectively strike American targets domestically and abroad.

“The biggest threat is not so much that we face an attack like 9/11,” said Leon E. Panetta, the C.I.A. director. “It is that Al Qaeda is adapting its methods in ways that oftentimes make it difficult to detect.”

As the C.I.A. continues its campaign of drone attacks aimed at Qaeda operatives in the mountains of Pakistan, the officials also said that the network’s splinter groups in Yemen and Somalia were taking on more importance.

But Mr. Blair began his annual threat testimony before Congress by saying that the threat of a crippling attack on telecommunications and other computer networks was growing as an increasingly sophisticated group of enemies had “severely threatened” the sometimes fragile systems undergirding the country’s information infrastructure.

“Malicious cyberactivity is occurring on an unprecedented scale with extraordinary sophistication,” he told the Senate Intelligence Committee.

His emphasis on the threat points up the growing concerns among American intelligence officials about the potentially devastating results of a coordinated attack on the nation’s technology apparatus, sometimes called a “cyber Pearl Harbor.”

He said that the surge in cyberattacks, including the recent penetration of Google’s servers from inside China, was a “wake-up call” for those who dismissed the threat of computer warfare.

“Sensitive information is stolen daily from both government and private sector networks, undermining confidence in our information systems, and in the very information these systems were intended to convey,” Mr. Blair said.

In another departure from last year’s testimony, Mr. Blair appeared alongside other top intelligence officials, including the heads of the C.I.A., the F.B.I. and the Defense Intelligence Agency. Last year, the intelligence director sat alone before the committee, a partly symbolic gesture intended to demonstrate the authority of the director of national intelligence, whose office has been criticized for commanding little power over America’s 16 intelligence agencies.

At times, the senators seemed more interested in debating one another than in hearing testimony from the assembled witnesses. Midway through the hearing, partisan bickering broke out about whether terrorist suspects ought to be tried in civilian courts and whether the man charged as the Dec. 25 bomber should have been given Miranda rights that could protect him against self-incrimination.

The intelligence chiefs also raised warnings about nuclear proliferation, particularly focusing on the nuclear programs in Iran and North Korea.

Mr. Blair said that Iran “has the scientific, technical and industrial capacity to eventually produce nuclear weapons,” and that the recent discovery of a secret enrichment plant near the city of Qum heightened suspicions about Iran’s intentions to build a nuclear bomb.

Still, he said that Tehran was following a “cost-benefit approach” to its nuclear decision-making and that it remained unclear whether Iran’s leadership would make a political calculation to begin producing weapons-grade uranium, giving other nations the opportunity to “influence” that decision through a variety of diplomatic steps.

Nothing but baseless fearmongering from the military industrial complex.

WSJ is just one piece and the MIC do as the banksters require.

THE SENATE WAS BRIEFED THAT AN ATTACK WOULD HAPPEN.

After spending over 30 Trillion on the fake war on terror we are to believe that the CIA not only knows about an eminent attack, but can do nothing to stop it?

The only possibility is that this is their attack, just like Condi Rice warning her friends, the CIA has warned the Seante. I mean this is just nuts.

The only other possibility is what Bohemian Grovesman David Gergen exposed on the Stephen Colbert show on 1/28/2010:

Stephen asks Gergen what he thinks of the pathetic State of the Union speech where Barack basically blamed Bush, Congress and SCOTUS for America's problems...http://forum.colbertnation.com/tcr/board/message?board.id=TCR&thread.id=18001&nobounce

David Gergen: "This president inherited the toughest set of problems of any president since Franklin Roosevelt. I think he's a man of enormous promise. I think he's one of the most talented people we've ever seen in this office. But the problems are enormous and it's really hard to govern this country today...I think it's way too early to make final judgments about Barack Obama."

Stephen Colbert: "I already did."

David Gergen: "I was young but watched closely John Kennedy when he came in. Very similar to Barack Obama. Idealistic, inspirational, it just lifted all of us, gave us a sense that this was going to be a breakthrough presidency. He came in and he stumbled through the first year. Made a lot of mistakes. Bay of Pigs. We won't go through the list. But he learned and he changed. And he became a much better president. And by the second year, the fall of his second year, when we had the Cuban missile crisis, he was the best we've ever seen in the White House in terms of leadership. He was a terrific leader."

Stephen Colbert "So all we need to be is on the edge of nuclear holocaust and he's our man. That's a very hopeful message for the future, David."

Now they may be planning some BS operation like in the first season of 24 where they allowed a "close call" nuke exercise to reinforce the presidency, but as we all know with operation bojinka and even the underwear bomber, that is the only way that our defenses allow these false flag attacks.

SO WHOEVER IS ASTONOMICALLY STUPID ENOUGH IN OUR INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITY/MILITARY/STATE DEPARTMENT/MEDIA TO FALL FOR THIS TROJAN HORSE OF INSANITY, HERE IS THE COMMUNICATION...

ABORT

ABORT

ABORT

THEY CAN SEE THE BIRD IN THE TREE, REPEAT, THEY CAN SEE THE BIRD IN THE TREE

ABORT ABORT ABORT

WTF guys, give it up, expose the banksters that are telling you this is a good thing and that it is the only choice to save the country. they are lying there asses off, they are the ones who took everyone's 401K's. they are the bosses of Maddoff, Bush, and Clinton (you guys must hate at least one of those puppets).

CIA Tells Congress al-Qaeda to Attack in Three to Six Months http://www.infowars.com/cia-tells-congress-al-qaeda-to-attack-in-three-to-six-months/Kurt Nimmo Infowars.com February 2, 2010

CIA boss Leon Panetta told Congress today that “homegrown extremists” working for al-Qaeda will strike America in three to six months. The recruits will be “clean” and have no traces to the phantom terrorist organization, according to Panetta and other intelligence officials.

“The biggest threat is not so much that we face an attack like 9/11. It is that al-Qaeda is adapting its methods in ways that oftentimes make it difficult to detect,” Panetta told the Senate Intelligence Committee. “It’s the lone-wolf strategy that I think we have to pay attention to as the main threat to this country,” he said.

National Intelligence Director Dennis Blair said changes made since the ludicrous Christmas non-bombing over Detroit “would he able to identify and stop someone like the Detroit bomber before he got on the plane. But he warned a more careful and skilled would-be terrorist might not be detected,” reports the Associated Press.

Within hours of the hyped non-bombing evidence emerged revealing the incident was a false flag attack. “Eyewitness testimony pointing to a man helping the accused terrorist board without a passport, along with an unusual cameraman documenting the attempted attack on board the plane raise more than red flags– they point towards an intelligence operation, run as a drill, meant to conjure up public support for a number of fronts in the continuing ‘War on Terror,’” Aaron Dykes wrote for Infowars.com on December 29, 2009.

Over the weekend British “spies” (as described by the New York Post) reportedly found evidence al-Qaeda is planning to insert “surgical bombs” inside suicide bombers. “Male bombers would have the explosive implanted near their appendix or in their buttocks; women would have them inside their breasts, Britain’s Daily Mail reported over the weekend.”

MI5 said the development was triggered by the introduction of body scanners at airports

Hundreds of terror suspects (read: patsies and mental deficients) have been convicted in civilian federal courts, including convicted shoe bomber Richard Reid who attended the Finsbury Park Mosque in North London. The Finsbury imam at the time was Abu Hamza al-Masri who began working with British Security Services in 1997. A large number of the supposed terrorists convicted in American courts were entrapped by the FBI in classic COINTELPRO fashion and did not have links to the CIA-created al-Qaeda. The entrapped were often fuzzy on al-Qaeda or what it represents.

In 2009, supposed terrorists in New York were so reluctant to participate in an FBI arranged undercover operation they had to be enticed with piles of cash, gifts, and bags of marijuana.

In the media lauded Miami terror case in 2007, the supposed ringleader Narseal “Prince Marina” Batiste “had heard of al-Qaida, but wasn’t sure what it stood for. The FBI instigators made Batiste swear loyalty to al-Qaida; then had him call on his local buddies to form an ‘Islamic army’ in Miami. None had military training. Some could barely read. But Batiste assured the group in the midst of its collective marijuana buzz of greatness ahead,” writes Saul Landau.

During the Senate “terror assessment hearing,” Blair also warned of the growing cyberthreat, saying computer-related attacks have become “dynamic and malicious.”

Blair warned the United States faces a “cyber Pearl Harbor” that will have devastating consequences for America’s technological infrastructure. Blair said an increasingly sophisticated group of enemies has “severely threatened” the country’s information systems and he said the recent cyber attacks against Google should be treated as a “wake up call,” reports Channel 4 News.

The Google attacks, according to an American internet security firm, came from China or its proxies, not al-Qaeda.

The government also expects us to believe the sophisticated and coordinated attack occurring on September 11, 2001, was also the work of medieval terrorists located in remote caves. It was never explained how Osama bin Laden made NORAD stand down.

Likewise, Blair does not tell us how al-Qaeda will take down the most advanced and complex computer networks in the world, presumably from the backwaters of Pakistan’s tribal region.

W T F ?

The CIA knows...

an attack will occur

the timeline for the attack

the profile of the attackers

the methods of the attack

BUT GIVES US NO INFORMATION ON HOW TO STOP IT.

The CIA is basically saying that there is an unstoppable Doomsday device that is going to hit and to assume crash position for the next 6 months while the banksters just continue to rape this country of all freedom and wealth.

And some people are saying that the CIA did NOT conduct a coup when they blew JFK's brains out?

Really?

There was no coup d'etat in America with Rockefeller and Harriman running the show (with lackeys Sir Henry Kissinger and Sir George H.W. Bush).

Is now the American nightmare. They have played us like an old violin. We are right there with Atilla the Hun and Stalin, no rant, I'm sick to death of these fakes, they make the Mafia look like Ma pecks bad boys and nothing more. These scum are trecherous, pyscos. I don't beleive here is a term that fits them, evil gets close, but not close enough.

"It's the American Dream, because you have to be asleep to believe it."George Carlin

Perhaps the failed Health Care Coup along with the Fake Swine Flu (putting it kindly) disappointed the Wealthy Elite and Intelligentsia. These guys need more power to enact their depopulation agenda. A war will be perfect to enact martial Law.